LABORRATIFIES PERFORMANCEMEASURES INCBA’S
the requests of union leadership while maintaining firm control of the budgetary limits within which the team was operating. Balancing those along with JTA’s non- financial operational needs was essential. JTA was able to cut weeks of analysis into days, running multiple models in real time under the tense back-and- forth circumstances that come with the negotiations territory. The real-time use of technology kept both sides at the bargaining table and considerably shortened the length of time it took to achieve a viable collective bargaining agreement for negotiations. On the first vote, the locals of both the IAM and ATU agreed to metrics in the areas of performance, safety and attendance, placing a percentage of their earnings at risk. Management obtained effective measures that can be adjusted as the needs of the Authority change, while the represented employees have the opportunity to maximize their wages—all within budget. Both administrative employees and represented employees are now being held accountable for the JTA’s annual goals. Technology enabled this win-win for the Authority and should represent a reliable path forward for bargaining in the public transportation industry.
JTA’s Labor Unions Buy Into Cultural Shift The mandate from the JTA Board and CEO was to include performance metrics in both union contracts and to do so on the first contract ratification vote. Aside from being members of the bargaining unit, these were JTA employees with as much of a stake in the success of the Authority as administrative employees. Ridership was trending down. Any increases in pay had to be tied to measurable results. How else could pay increases be justified to customers if the Authority was not turning on all cylinders? The JTA negotiating team decided first to tackle negotiations with IAM, the smaller of the two unions. The key element for the team was to use technology to turn big data into smart data. What were the facts with respect to absenteeism, safety and performance? The JTA needed to get beyond the anecdotes typically expressed across the bargaining table. In negotiating with the two locals, the JTA used technology to automate more than 350,000 data points, including those on wage rates, benefits, deductions, turnover percentages and years of service. That was important because Union members first and foremost are JTA employees. The Authority needed to put the negotiating team in the best position to meet
Examples of rec- ognition inspired by JTA’s perfor- mance manage- ment-focused culture
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